Principal Software Engineer

Overview

Commercial Engineering & AI (CEAI) partners closely with stakeholders to accelerate the transformation of Microsoft's commercial business into a frontier organization. We bring together AI‑native engineering, modern platforms, and deep commercial insight to reimagine how work gets done - at scale and with impact. Our mission is to unlock new ways of operating through intelligent systems while creating the conditions for our teams to do the most meaningful work of their careers. If you're excited to build, experiment, and shape the future of commercial execution with AI at the core, we invite you to apply.

Within CEAI, the Sales Planning & Commercial Incentives (SPCI) team turns Microsoft's revenue strategy into seller reality. SPCI owns the end-to-end engineering of the planning-to-payout lifecycle - the platforms, tools, and user experiences that equip every Microsoft seller with the right coverage, clear targets, and timely, accurate compensation.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will own the technical vision and end-to-end architecture for the planning-to-payout platform. You will define the modular core primitives and the contract-driven, composable architecture that enables the edge, set the engineering standards that keep our systems reliable and secure, and serve as a hands-on technical leader and force multiplier - partnering across engineering, product, business, and corporate functions to ship a composable, intelligent platform that sellers and business stakeholders trust.

Responsibilities

• Technical Vision & Architecture - Guide the end-to-end architecture for the planning-to-payout lifecycle. Define the modular core primitives and the contract-driven, composable architecture that enables the edge, balancing long-term extensibility with near-term delivery.

• Set the engineering standards, design patterns, and technical principles for the team. Drive quality, reliability, security, performance, and cost-efficiency across services, and raise the technical bar through design reviews and architectural guidance. Represent SPCI in companywide cadences.

• AI-Native & Agentic Systems - Architect intelligent, agentic capabilities into the platform. Identify where AI can reduce manual toil, increase accuracy, and unlock new experiences across the planning-to-payout lifecycle.

• Hands-on Technical Leadership - Prototype hard problems, lead the most critical designs, and unblock the team. Mentor and grow engineers, acting as a force multiplier across the organization.

• Cross-Functional Influence - Partner with product management, engineering leaders, data science, design, sales operations, and finance to align technical direction with business goals. Influence without authority and unify partners around a clear technical vision and plan.

• Communication & Data-Informed Decisions - Communicate architecture, technical strategy, tradeoffs, and risk to executives with clarity and data-driven narratives. Define and monitor the technical health metrics - reliability, latency, quality, and engineering velocity - that prove the system is winning.

Qualifications

Required/minimum qualifications

Bachelors Degree in Computer Science or related technical field AND 8+ years technical engineering experience with coding in languages including, but not limited to, C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing, shipping, and operating large-scale distributed systems in production, with ownership of reliability, availability, observability, data consistency, performance, and safe evolution of live services.
• 8+ years of experience defining technical architecture and leading cross-team engineering initiatives.
• Experience with architectural judgment in ambiguous, multi-year platform investments: decomposing complex domains into durable primitives and contracts, making trade-offs, and sequencing modernization without disrupting critical business operations.
• Experience leading technical decisions across independently owned services and teams, establishing clear API and data contracts, ownership boundaries, and compatibility and migration strategies.
• Communication and analytical skills, using data to build persuasive technical narratives, guide decisions, and influence leaders.
• Experience to distinguishing where probabilistic AI adds value from where deterministic systems, controls, and human approval must remain authoritative.
• Experience designing event-driven and workflow-oriented systems that support high-volume, business-critical processing, auditability, replay/recovery, and deterministic outcomes where financial or operational correctness matters.
• Experience in cloud-native architecture (e.g., Azure), distributed systems, and data platforms.
• Experience in commercial systems, including incentives, marketplaces, sales planning, financial systems, or other domains with high correctness and auditability requirements.
• Experience raising architectural quality through hands-on design leadership: identifying systemic risks early, simplifying overly coupled systems, and translating design principles into adopted engineering practices.

Software Engineering IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.